In terms of content, the film can be regarded as a collection of Hitchcock-style train thrillers. There are mysterious strangers in the style of "The Train Strangers", the disappearance and return of someone in the style of "The Lady Is Missing", and the evasion of the police in the style of "Thirty-Nine Steps". Of course, there is also the romantic and dangerous sexual attraction of "North by Northwest". Realism and the open scale of film performance make the director of the film no longer need to create a sexual metaphor of the train entering a tunnel, but more directly use the characteristics of the train to share the claustrophobic space with others to express this theme. The handsome appearance, romantic temperament and very provocative gaze of the artist of the stranger Carlos formed a sharp contrast with Joey's reserved muna, and immediately attracted the heroine Jessie. And when tossing and turning at night, I accidentally discovered that Carlos and his girlfriend were enjoying each other on the opposite upper bunk, which further aroused the original desire in the woman's heart. All of these paved the way for her to finally accept an invitation from a strange man to visit the Orthodox Church.
Unlike the genre characters in Greek movies, the heroine in this film is not a "wrong person" because she did commit a crime. But the audience always empathizes with it. On the one hand, this is because of the heroine's own affinity, and on the other hand, it is also because the film continues to guide the audience in the direction of "evil" to speculate about Carlos's mysterious background. The culmination of the development was Joey's "disappearance" after a separate meeting with Carlos at the train station. But I am a little confused about this scene. Logically, it is a suspenseful effect deliberately created by the director to strengthen the audience's worry about the heroine's situation. But why arrange it so that Jess knew before he left the hotel that his husband was not dead but just missed the car? Doesn't this mean that the tension of the Orthodox church section is greatly reduced? Because the audience knows that Carlos is not so "bad". But in any case, director Brad Anderson still captures one of the essence of Hitchcock's movies. That is, "Innocent people must be chased by the police and bad guys at the same time." This not only makes the story more vivid, but also makes the logic more reasonable-unable to rely on the protection of the police, and at the same time ashamed to confide the truth to her husband. So I can only rely on myself!
But Anderson's grasp of the general direction is not bad, and his skill in handling many details is still far from the masters of the predecessors. First of all, although the film is known as a train thriller, the climax does not happen on the train but the desolate and ruined church off the beaten track. The stealing and changing of posts for that pile of dolls also took place inside the hotel (does the plot of the man taking a bath in the woman’s bathroom also pay tribute to "North by Northwest"? Although the door is open and the clothes are taken off). More importantly, even for the real "train thriller moment", the director did not make full use of its claustrophobic space and strangers and other train characteristics to create dramatic conflicts. In "Thirty-Nine Steps," the hero Hanna hurriedly broke into the box of the other people under the police on both sides of the train passage and kissed the heroine who appeared for the first time. The audience expected that this sudden romance might become Hannah's amulet, but the woman unexpectedly chose to stand on the side of the police. The heroine in the film also ran away in a hurry after being severely questioned by Ben Kingsley, and at one time was surrounded by police on both ends. But just as everyone was expecting what would happen, she walked into her box disappointingly.
The creation of other tension moments that exist outside the environment is also not exciting enough. The woman's digital camera recorded Carlos's last whereabouts, and Ben Kingsley's inspection made the mood of the person and the audience very nervous. However, unfortunately, the director did not design the emergency response to the woman's crisis (similar to Thornhill's sudden whimsical bidding in "North by Northwest" to cause the police to escape), nor did he introduce other novelties. Kingsley simply returned the camera back inexplicably! The tension was released, but the audience was not satisfied. And in this passage, the flashbacks in the woman's mind are purely superfluous. The director underestimated the audience's memory and connection inference ability.
The biggest problem with the film is anticlimactic. Although there are individual highlights such as the escape of the culprit caused by the language barrier of the accomplice, but after being detained by the shoes, the two successfully escaped and boarded the train again is really nonsense. Especially when someone who has never driven a train started the engine, it is simply intolerable.
The actors performed relatively well. Among them, the heroine actor Emily Modimo has a gentle and graceful temperament that is rare in European and American actresses, which is in line with the role requirements in the film. And letting the natural murderer Woody Harrison play the role of a kind, peaceful and even dull husband who is hunted down is the only bit of black humor that this British movie can provide.
BTW: It should be less than "recommended", Samsung and a half.
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